Vagabond

Why did you drop out?

Champagne on the road's better!

Many viewers respond to 1985's VAGABOND solely based on their political views, or at least their ideals about what is earned and/or deserved in life.  Mona is a young woman who has decided to drop out of the societal machine and take to the back roads of the French countryside.  She hitchhikes, sometimes lives in a tent, other times squats in empty chateaus, takes a handful of francs for menial tasks, accepts the generosity of strangers.  Our first view of Mona is in a ditch, her corpse frozen over.  Writer/director Agnes Varda's voice becomes audible as she interviews those who encountered the wanderer over the past few weeks of her life.  Some feel her final destination was entirely deserved, that she finally "withered" away after a life that ceased to have meaning.  Others had envied her carefree lifestyle, her "freedom."  Mirroring many in this film's audience, I would bet.

I did not feel compelled to pass judgment on Mona.  I actually had a stronger emotional response to her fate than I would've expected.  But, I was repelled and annoyed by her at times, as her behavior was crass and selfish.  Sandrine Bonnaire brings this multifaceted, always intriguing character to vivid life, and the performance always felt honest.  I don't know what sort of preparation she did for the role, but I bought it entirely.  A "walking Loud Reed song" as one Letterboxd reviewer put it.  A wild child, callous, but also capable of generosity, appreciation of generosity, and even love.  She has a few lovers during her final journey, some are fleeting, others, such as a Tunisian field worker who takes her in, have potential for something more.  But he, like so many others, betrays her, unwillingly or otherwise.

Varda's film has clearly influenced current feminist directors like Lynne Ramsay.  MORDERN CAVERN would make for an interesting double bill.  Men are portrayed more as helpless and weak than malevolent.  Others are purely judgmental, like that hippy farmer who gives her a trailer in which to live, expecting her to help out.  Rather, she sleeps till noon, then reads books and smokes all day.  His views are unmistakenly conservative - you don't work, you don't eat.  You might ask him what led him to such a point of view.  Maturity? Getting older? Having a family?  Mona will never live to experience such things.  But is she without guilt because of this?   

VAGABOND manages a hybrid of quasi-documentary and road movie that in less skillful hands would've left me cold.  Contemporary efforts to merge fiction and non-fiction have largely failed.  The older I get, the more I want to savor the vintages, the influencers rather than the influenced.   Varda has fashioned quite a powerful film.  Not a perfect one, and there are a few scenes that the movie could've done without.  But those final moments, as death is all but a long shadow over this woman who would dare to reject society, were overwhelmingly sad and have haunted my memories of the entire movie for some time now.